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My photos this time are a bit dodgy so I apologise in advance 🙂 I just wanted to hurry and post this before I lost track of these projects completely!

I’ve finished three dresses recently, you may recall the fabrics that I was using for these:

A lilac cotton for myself:

A grey check (I forgot to take a photo of this one completed before I handed it over) and an orange elephant print for my boss:

This time, I kept track of how much time I spent on these collectively, as well as the fabric and thread costs. I was pretty surprised with the outcome! I did think it would take me longer, but considering I have to stop and start my stitching in between work and life, I think I did pretty well.

I spent a total of $108 on fabric and threads, and spent 4.25 hours cutting, overlocking, pinning and stitching these dresses – so, if I was to say my nominal rate of “pay” for creating the garments is $25 per hour, it “cost” me approximately $215 to make three dresses, or approximately $72 per dress.

I did get the very high quality fabric on sale, but I would really love to hear your thoughts my pricing these dresses at $75 – I welcome all responses – and of course, I’m open for orders for these dresses!

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As mentioned yesterday, I have three new dresses in progress – one much needed one for myself, and two for my boss – gotta keep the boss happy!

I had some time at lunch yesterday to cut them out, and have managed to overlock and pin them today. I’ve made good progress on these so far so hopefully they will be finished within a few days.

I’m using a pattern that I have used previously – the one that I made for my boss out of the pink & gold Aboriginal print fabric (shown below on the front cover of Stylish Dress Book). I’m not 100% positive that it is particularly my style, but I’m willing to give it a go, especially since I picked up the lilac cotton fabric at a bargain price. Hey, if I don’t like it when it’s on I can always sell it, can’t I!

In the photos below, you’ll see the three dresses – the lilac cotton is for myself, and the pale grey check and orange elephant are for my boss. I very nearly stuffed up the elephant print when cutting out and in fact upon pinning them together today I have realised that I did in fact stuff up cutting out the sleeves so I need to cut into more fabric to fix that up. Obviously it’s a directional print, I cut the front piece first with the elephants’ legs at the bottom as they should be, and when I looked again, I had pinned the back piece with the elephants’ legs at the top so they were standing on their heads – oops! Lucky I noticed that before I actually cut the fabric!

It is quite early in the season but it is absolutely freezing here where I work in the Southern Highlands. I have realised how depleted of warm winter clothing my wardrobe is, so I have set myself a goal of making myself at least one new garment every fortnight until the end of winter. Hopefully the motivation stays with me as I unfortunately can’t just rug up in jeans, jumpers and ugg boots to work each day!

I received my Deerfield embroidery back in the post yesterday from being marked for the course I’m participating in. I was very happy with the comments although I only had a very quick read. I will post a final photo and summary of my course progress so far at a later stage.

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Well, my boss is wearing the Aboriginal print dress today, and the compliments have been non-stop! Everyone has been asking where she got it from and saying how much they love it! I’m over the moon with how it turned out, I was happy enough that she liked it but to hear at least six people this morning comment on it is amazing.

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This is the Aboriginal print dress I finished over the weekend for my boss – a late Christmas present! I’m happy with the finished product, I hope she is! Once again, bad lighting for the photo, sorry….

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These are two dresses I’ve been working on lately which I’ve posted in-progress photos of previously. I made them using a Japanese dress pattern, they are soooo quick and easy to put together. The floral one is mine, and the stripey one is for my boss. Of course, we both ended up wearing them to work today! She has dressed hers up with a nice green belt which makes us look just a little less like twins. As I’ve uploaded the photos, they seem to be a bit poor quality because of the chandelier light we have in our lounge room, I will try taking better photos of these at another stage.

The next dress on my sewing machine is the Aboriginal print dress for my boss. Following that will be a nice, bright one for myself – I’m just trying to settle on which pattern to use! In the meantime, I have discovered that I have an embroidery assessment due on 10 February, so that may take up all my spare time in the next couple of weeks – I had pushed it aside over Christmas and forgotten when it was due – oops! I better get cracking on that. Happy stitching!

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This week, I’ve been doing some dressmaking. I’ve been using some Japanese dress patterns as they are really light and comfortable to wear, and very easy and quick to cut out and put together. As usual, as soon as I turn my back, Miss Zoe the cat decides she wants to help. This is Zoe “helping” cut a pattern out. I shouldn’t complain this time, last time she spilt my dish of pins and ate about 4 metres of sewing cotton…..

I’ve finished a dress for myself which is currently in the wash so I will post a final photo once it’s clean and ironed.

I made the same dress for my boss in a different fabric, a blue/green/brown stripe – an in-progress photo is below, although more progress has been made since I took that photo – essentially it is now finished, I just need to hem it.

I have also taken a bite of courage and cut out another dress for my boss – this one was supposed to be her Christmas present but I just didn’t get to it in time. I say “take a bit of courage” because the fabric is a pretty pink cotton hand printed with gold paint by silk screening by an Aboriginal artist. My boss is a fan of Aboriginal art and fabric so I sourced this online from the Northern Territory and because it is hand printed and by a well known artist, it cost a small fortune. I wanted to use it for something a bit special. She also likes Japanese dress patterns and has bought me a couple of my books, so after hours of pouring over the pages of my Japanese stash, I ended up going with the cover dress on one of the books, it is shown below in blue but I have taken a photo of the fabric as I was cutting the pieces. I have made it longer than on the cover, as she prefers them to come just below her knee. I hope she likes the finished product!